We know Bill Gates is rich. And successful. In fact, those
labels seem too mild for him. He is, quite simply, the richest man
in America and the most wildly successful entrepreneur entering the
21st century. But is he happy?

If you're seeking an improved entrepreneurial existence this
year, keep in mind that happiness is in no way connected to wealth.
Richard Easterlin, an economic historian with the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles, has found that, although the
gross domestic product per capita in the United States has more
than doubled in the past half century, there has been absolutely no
improvement in the percentage of happy people. "Even though
each generation has more income than its predecessor, each
generation wants more than its predecessor," says Easterlin,
who points out one of our most enduring cultural beliefs is that
another 10 percent to 20 percent increase in income would make each
one of us perfectly happy.

According to Easterlin, who is also the author of Growth
Triumphant: The Twenty-First Century in Historical Perspective
(University of Michigan), there's an inherent flaw in that
belief: It doesn't take into account that aspirations rise as a
function of a rise in income. In other words, you'll probably
be able to get what you want, but at that point, you'll
probably want something else. "The more we have, the more we
want," says Easterlin. "The evidence shows that's the
way the world functions."

It's clearly the way the business world works, especially
when you throw in that competing-with-the-Gateses factor.
"Let's say you're starting a business, and you're
struggling," says Easterlin. "You think `When it's a
bigger business, I'm going to be able to sit back and enjoy
it.' But when you get to that stage, you find out that all the
other [entrepreneurs at that level] are working just as hard,
living in much bigger houses and taking expensive vacations. And
the result is, you don't feel rich or successful at all. People
always think they're going to get happier as they progress
through their careers, but the evidence doesn't bear that
out."

How does a goal-oriented entrepreneur exist in this endless
cycle? Not only with a goal, but with a goal that is purer. "I
think it would be good if, instead of automatically getting into
this material pursuit, we tried as a society to be more
contemplative about what kind of world we want and what we want out
of this world," says Easterlin. "It's now a largely
unconscious process that we're involved in. If it were more
self-conscious, if we gave thought to the way we wanted things to
be, that would be desirable."

Laugh It Up

People with a sense of humor are three times as likely to
report top levels of energy as those who don't have a sense of
humor.

Ninety percent of survey respondents believe that having a
sense of humor helps them perform better at work.

People with a sense of humor are half as likely to get anxious
or frustrated in the face of a problem and are twice as likely to
be able to pull themselves out of a bad mood.

It's The Law

...and small business is on the docket.

By Charlotte Mulhern

Here's good news for entrepreneurs with legal needs: An
increasing number of U.S. law schools are offering courses with a
small-business focus. That means more graduates are entering the
work force with small-business law experience, intending to break
the mold and pursue careers at small businesses instead of big law
firms.

Who's getting in on the trend? New York University School of
Law in New York City, George Washington University Law School in
Washington, DC, and University of Pennsylvania Law School in
Philadelphia, to name a few. The University of Pennsylvania, for
one, offers a Small Business Clinic where students work under the
supervision of a law firm representing small businesses. Students
practice advising entrepreneurs in the start-up stage, drafting
shareholder agreements, creating sales contracts and more.

"I think increasingly [small-business law] is being
recognized as a different practice, with different legal rules and
skills," says Gordon Smith, a law professor at Lewis &
Clark College's Northwestern School of Law in Portland, Oregon.
Smith explains that while traditional lawyers often specialize in a
narrow area of law, successful small-business lawyers keep their
skills more general.

Lewis & Clark's entrepreneurial-focused curriculum
extends beyond that of most law schools. The college offers 10 such
courses, ranging from seminars on initial public offerings to
classes on drafting business documents. It is also developing a
clinic where students will work with emerging businesses. And last
year, the college launched The Journal of Small and Emerging
Business Law.

"More students are interested in emerging businesses;
that's partially because they have become the sexy businesses
in our economy," says Smith. These companies also carry some
risk. One Lewis & Clark student last year interned at a failing
business. The benefit? He witnessed firsthand a company's
struggle to survive. One drawback, though--the position didn't
become permanent upon graduation.

Taking Care Of Business

"Nurture" is his middle name.

By Charlotte Mulhern

It's an enormous undertaking traditionally administered by
the government--but that didn't stop entrepreneur Jim Robbins
from taking a crack at it. Five years ago, the founder of Menlo
Park, California-based Business Cluster Development set forth to do
what no one had before: design a system of business incubators for
California's emerging technology companies. To date, Robbins
has started eight incubators.

"It's a win-win situation," says Robbins, 50.
"The process is viewed positively by the community as well as
by the individual companies. And I like helping people get things
started."

How does he do it? Robbins creates incubators using a prototype
he formulated for technology-specific firms. The funds to set up
the incubators are privately donated, unlike conventional
incubators primarily sponsored by government grants.
"We're taking what we've done successfully in one
incubator and replicating it to open others," Robbins
says.

It's a concept that works. Of the 180 companies he's
helped so far, 85 percent continue to reap profits while on their
own.

Business Cluster Development also awards incubator scholarships
to women- and minority-owned businesses, opening doors to those who
may not otherwise have the chance. Says Robbins, "It's
clear the companies that come into these incubators have a higher
success rate."

It's A Draw

Your kindergarten teacher was right.

By Heather Page

Along with writing business plans and creating marketing
materials, here's a skill they probably didn't teach you in
business school: drawing. Yes, the ability to put pen and ink to
paper to create a picture isn't just for artistic purposes,
experts insist. Rather, when integrated into brainstorming and
strategic planning sessions or used as a problem-solving method,
drawing can be a powerful business tool.

"Drawing is a great way to gather everybody's ideas and
present them in a new way," explains Milly R. Sonneman, author
of Beyond Words: A Guide to Drawing Out Ideas (Ten Speed
Press) and president of Hands On Graphics Inc., a graphic
communication and training company in Mill Valley, California.

Sonneman, whose client list includes several Fortune 500
national and international companies, advises beginning artists to
start small by, say, drawing posters displaying one simple idea
such as a business meeting's purpose or creating lists with
graphical elements representing each point in a discussion. More
advanced would-be Picassos can cluster groups of related ideas,
turn topics into detailed grids for easy analysis, and use
"mindmapping" to diagram the steps of a process and track
a project's progress.

If you're not the Pictionary type and cringe at the thought
of drawing in front of large groups, keep in mind there are simple
techniques and common symbols you can use as a beginner. Then, with
practice, you'll probably start focusing less on your drawing
and more on what's being said and even developing personalized
images, Sonneman says.

Using this technique, you may find people will speak up and
interact more during business meetings because drawing facilitates
a dialogue. It may also prove useful when implementing ideas.
"When pictures are combined with words, people are able to
integrate and remember the information better," says
Sonneman.

So what are you waiting for? Break out the magic markers and
start scribbling.

And The Winner Is...

Get ready - it's contest time.

There's something about you. The way you treat your
employees, the way you serve your customers, the way you juggle
your many day-to-day responsibilities.

That "something" might be enough to earn you the title
of Office Depot and Entrepreneur magazine's Small
Business Owner of the Year.

To qualify, you must have been in business for at least one
year, be a founder and majority owner of the company, employ fewer
than 100 people, and return the entry form on page 29 by June 15.
Besides winning a grand prize of $5,000 in merchandise from Office
Depot and a three-year subscription to Entrepreneur
magazine, you, of course, gain the prestige of being chosen as our
first Small Business Owner of the Year. Now that's
something.

Read All About It

What are business owners reading these days? The top 10
business books at press time (based on net sales) were:

10. Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built
a Company One Cup at a Time, by Howard Schultz and Dori Jones
Yang, $24.95 (Hyperion)

Say Cheese

Taking a bite out of a nationwide craze.

By Heather Page

Now that the Christmas decorations have been put away and the
smell of cookies is fading, you may once again spy a rather unusual
sight when you look around . . . cheese. Or, to
be more precise, Cheeseheads. Reaching epidemic proportions last
year after the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, the Cheesehead
craze sweeping the nation hasn't slowed since.

Bob Fruchter is one entrepreneur getting a slice of the
Cheesehead pie. In conjunction with Milwaukee-based Foamation Inc.,
the company that developed those cushy foam Cheesehead hats that
you see at all the Packers games, Fruchter is marketing a
Cheesehead soap-on-a-rope and fragrance (which, by the way,
doesn't smell like cheese). "People just like funky, neat
things and want to get caught up in the fun," says Fruchter,
45.

While moving into the national spotlight only recently, the
craving for everything Cheesehead actually began 11 years ago when
the first Cheesehead hat was worn at a Milwaukee Brewers baseball
game.

Since then, people around the nation have been saying cheese by
donning Cheesehead baseball hats, neckties, cuff links and
earrings. Just like the pungent smell of Limburger, it looks like
the Cheesehead craze will linger--at least for a while.

Gray Matters

Things only your hairdresser should know.

By Heather Page

Conventional thinking says men with gray hair look
distinguished, while women with ash-colored locks look, well, old.
But recent findings reveal that men may not be so lucky when it
comes to people's perceptions of their silver mops,
particularly in the entrepreneurial world.

According to a recent study commissioned by hair products
company Combe Inc., not only are gray-haired men perceived to
possess less vitality than men with other hair colors, but
they're also seen as less proficient. When rated by 100 leading
image consultants, only 27 percent of the gray-haired participants
were deemed "very capable." But when the image
consultants were shown the same men with their natural hair color
restored, the very capable rating jumped to 49 percent.

These findings may be of significance to male entrepreneurs
because, for many, image is king. "Entrepreneurs are a walking
image of their company, so if their image is suffering, it could
impact their businesses," says John T. Molloy, an image
researcher and consultant.

Unfortunately, there is no silver lining to this story.
Today's youth-oriented society values a youthful appearance,
says Molloy. Looks like it's time to get out that Grecian
Formula.

Cyber Sick

A new kind of computer virus.

By Debra Phillips

Can you be sick and wired? According to psychologist Michael
Cohn, the unrelenting presence of computer technology is driving
quite a few folks to become afflicted with technopathologies.

"There's been expanded use of the Internet for commerce
and for personal relationships, but there hasn't been [as much]
attention paid to the downsides that have human as well as
financial costs," says Cohn, who co-authored
Technoshock (Kendall/Hunt Publishing) with his wife,
Linda.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to
PC? Well, something like that. As Cohn sees it, today's
technopathologies run the gamut from cyber-avoidance to
cyber-obsession. Symptoms include everything from anxiety or panic
to concentration problems to a refusal to discuss technology at
all. Clear signs you're obsessed, says Cohn, are if you lose
control of the amount of time you spend on your computer and if you
neglect responsibilities.

"I foresee at least a couple of generations struggling with
this issue," says Cohn, who treats those suffering from
technopathologies through biofeedback, relaxation-skill development
and a host of other therapeutic measures. "To keep up with the
demands for productivity everywhere is hard."

And getting harder. Since technology shows no sign of slowing,
however, we must understand why we can't always get with the
program--and how our computers may byte back.